No Bullshit Bible Lesson #13: Isaac comes into his own.

Genesis, Chapters 25-26:

Now that Isaac had gotten a wife, Abraham decided to remarry, and he did. And his new wife had a whole bunch of kids, who Abraham gave presents and sent away so that Isaac wouldn’t have to share his inheritance. Abraham did finally die, aged 175. And Isaac did not, in fact, have to share his inheritance with anyone.

Isaac and Ishmael buried Abraham next to Sarah.

Having finished the task of burying his father, Ishmael went back home and did what people did then: he had a lot of babies. Isaac, in turn, attempted to do the same, but was momentarily prevented from doing so because his wife, much like his mother, was totally infertile. Isaac was a bit smarter than his dad though, and instead of just feeling sorry for himself, he went and asked God to fix it. God did, and soon Isaac and Rebekah were expecting twins.

Rebekah had something of a rough pregnancy and went to ask God why.
        “You have two nations in you,” He said, “One of your kid will be the patriarch of a strong people, who will be subservient to the weaker ones of your other child.”
        “Oh.”

The twins were Esau, who was born red and possibly hairy, and Jacob. Finally, after twenty years of marriage, Isaac had some heirs.

The boys grew up, Esau was a decent hunter, and Jacob was pretty boring and lived in tents. Isaac and Rebekah, not being the best parents, each picked one child to love. Isaac loved Esau, because they shared a love of venison, and Rebekah loved Jacob, presumably because Isaac got to pick first.

One day Esau stumbled out of the field, nearing death from exertion. He came to Jacob’s tent, where he was making some tasty-looking red stew.
        “Jacob, I am totally in need of some food. Help me out, huh?”
        “Umm....Tell you what; I will sell you some stew in return for your birthright.”
        “Well, I am dying,” Esau said, too weak to notice what a dick his brother was being, “guess my birthright isn’t much good to me dead.”
        “Deal, then?”
        “Sure.”

So Esau sold his birthright for some bread and lentil stew, then went on his way.

Isaac and Rebekah, meanwhile, found themselves in the middle of a famine and had to move. As for their destination, God told Isaac where to go and reiterated the promises of greatness that he had made to Abraham. So Isaac settled down in Gerar.

In Gerar, which was within Abimelech’s lands, he pulled the same crap on Abimelech that his dad had done: he told everyone that his hot wife was actually his sister, because he was paranoid that people would kill him to take her. Rich people have always been paranoid about being killed on the street, apparently.

Of course, when Abimelech figured out what was up, he called Isaac out on his shit, then had word spread that anyone that messed with Isaac or Rebekah would be put to death.

This allowed Isaac time to tend the fields and he saw a hundred-fold return on his investment and God blessed him. This trend kept up and Isaac became fabulously wealthy and the Philistines were pretty jealous. So jealous, in fact, that they went and filled in all the wells that had been dug by Abraham’s servants.

Abimelech then went to Isaac and said, “You should just go, man. You’re just...you’re too awesome for us.” Because, truly, Isaac was like a movie star living in Flint, Michigan.

So Isaac left and went to...Gerar? Maybe it was a different place called Gerar. Yeah...like moving from Detroit, Michigan to Detroit, Oregon. Or Paris, France to Paris, Texas. Anyway, he left Gerar and went to Gerar and he had all the wells re-dug. The herdsmen of Gerar claimed that the water was theirs, so Isaac’s people had to dig another, but the herdsmen claimed that one, too. So they had to keep doing that until everyone had enough water and the herdsmen stopped being such babies and learned to share.

All this well-digging ended up in Beer-sheba, where God came to him.
        “Hey.”
        “Oh, hey God. How’s it hangin’?”
        “Good. Listen, just wanted to let you know I got your back. Me an’ your old man were tight, so I’m lookin’ out for you because I told him I would,” He said, sounding like a cop taking on a rookie partner in a movie.

So Isaac built an altar and pitched a tent and, just for good measure, dug one more well. Shortly after that, Abimelech came up from Gerar with a friend of his as well as the Captain of the Army.

        “Um...why are you here? I know you hate me; you kicked me off your land.”
        “Oh. Uh, well...y’see...We noticed you’re friends with God and all, so we thought maybe we could make a deal. Y’know we kicked you out and stuff, but we did it peacefully, right? I mean, we haven’t harmed you. We just thought, maybe you could, like, not harm us either?”
        “Sure. Here’s some food.”

And they ate, spent the night, and went in peace. The peace he had made with Abimelech, coupled with the subsequent finding of water, had Isaac feeling pretty good. Then Esau had to go and spoil it by marrying some daughter of Hittites, which spoiled Isaac’s mood and Rebekah’s.